The Countless Affairs of the Mortal World

Only after tasting bitterness could one know sweetness. Ye Fu knew that saying better than anyone.

Time slipped quietly by.

Everything proceeded in due order, until it was time for Hu Lan's favorite part: storytelling.

Ye Fu was not the sort to teach by rote. Every day, he set aside some time to share stories from his original world with Hu Lan.

From fairy tales to myths, he told her all kinds of stories. Hu Lan was highly receptive, listening with relish whether they were horror stories or tragedies. Whenever he told one, her eyes lit up. To her, her teacher always knew so much that she did not, and his head was full of all sorts of bizarre and fantastic stories. He was remarkable.

In short, this was a chance to raise her favorability.

Qin Sanyue would always put down whatever she was doing at this time, bring over a little stool, and sit by the door, quietly listening to Ye Fu tell stories. More than once, she had become so absorbed that she forgot herself. That had happened with yesterday's story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. When he reached the part where they turned into butterflies, Qin Sanyue had suddenly burst into tears outside, catching Ye Fu somewhat off guard.

Ye Fu could not bear to see girls cry.

Today's story was "A Chinese Ghost Story." Ye Fu had studied literature at university and could be considered a good storyteller. His own strength was also formidable, and the story he told was so immersive that Qin Sanyue, sitting outside, had trembled with fear at one point.

Qin Sanyue's look of wanting to listen despite her fear was rather funny. As for Hu Lan, she was utterly carefree: tragedies did not make her sad, horror stories excited her to no end, and only comedies made her rock back and forth with laughter.

Time passed amid laughter and chatter.

Days like these had more or less settled into a normal rhythm.

Aside from planning his lessons each day, Ye Fu observed Qu Hongxiao's condition.

At the most dangerous point, Qu Hongxiao's physical body had nearly shattered. The sight made Ye Fu's heart leap into his throat, and several times he had nearly been the first to lose his nerve and stop her from reading.

To his relief, however, Qu Hongxiao had kept gritting her teeth and persevering, showing absolute resilience. Even when her whole body hurt so much that she could not muster any strength, she refused to take her eyes off the book for a moment.

Ye Fu could sense the pain she was in. It was much like having an ordinary person's bones broken, one by one. In his view, Qu Hongxiao's determination and perseverance meant that she had already overcome the greatest obstacle on her path of cultivation.

Her cultivation was recovering quickly. Each time her body's meridians shattered and were reforged, they rose to another level and became more unobstructed than before. After all, they had been touched by Vast Righteous Qi.

This continued until the evening of the fifth day. At the final moment, Qu Hongxiao was about to finish reading "Clear Breeze."

And the true test lay in this final part.

It was content Ye Fu had added himself, tailored to Qu Hongxiao's circumstances.

Chapter 32: The Countless Affairs of the Mortal World

Inside Ye Fu's little world.

Qu Hongxiao placed a trembling hand on the last page. Before she even turned it, she could already feel the pressure. It was not merely that she suspected the last page might be difficult to read; the pressure was plainly manifest in the book itself.

The last page trembled constantly, as though something wanted to break free of the paper's constraints.

Qu Hongxiao had only touched it lightly, yet she felt a searing heat.

Rather than turn the last page immediately, she rose and walked outside the wooden house, gazing at the valley scenery for a long time.

A trace of sorrow settled between her brows, something she had never known before.

She looked up at the faint light falling into the valley and took a deep breath, then turned around, trembling.

She had a feeling that this last page would be harder to read than all the others put together. It was possible... possible that she would die.

Although Qu Hongxiao believed that, since her teacher had said it was safe here, he would not stand by and watch her life be endangered because of this, she did not want to reach the point where she needed him to intervene.

She did not want her teacher to think she was someone who needed protection.

She gritted her teeth and set her brow.

Qu Hongxiao sat back down on the stool and took a long, serious look at the pear branch that had rested quietly beside her for five days. She pressed her lips together, wanting to speak but stopping herself.

At last, she turned the final page.

A cloud of mist rose up. She could only dimly make out a cuckoo taking flight, singing a lilting song in the air for a moment before it vanished.

Only after the mist dispersed did Qu Hongxiao murmur in a daze, "Every word and sentence has gained a spirit. Teacher, just what sort of person are you...?"

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. A moment later, she opened them and slowly read aloud the single line on the page:

"Teacher asked: The mortal world holds ten thousand upon ten thousand affairs. Where among them are you?"

In an instant, Qu Hongxiao's eyes lost focus, and she sank into chaos.

The robin that had vanished inside the wooden house suddenly took form again, swooped straight down, and plunged into Qu Hongxiao's body before scattering in an instant.

Qu Hongxiao parted her lips slightly, unable to utter a word. A thin stream of crimson slowly trickled from the corner of her mouth. Then bright red blood flowed from the corners of her eyes, her nostrils, the space between her brows, and both ears, staining her whole body red in an instant.

At that moment, she did not know whether what she felt was pain. It was as though even the last thing she could feel had vanished. Before her eyes was only darkness, nothing but darkness.

She did not know that all the blood vessels in her body had shattered, that her meridians, Dantian, Purple Mansion, and Spirit Platform had collapsed, or that her clothes, whiter than snow, had been dyed blood-red.

She only felt herself moving forward through the darkness, unable to see a glimmer of light.

Then, after a moment of bewilderment, she could no longer even perceive her own existence.

Outside the little world.

Ye Fu stood beneath the pear tree, looking at it for a long time without speaking.

The pear tree lowered a branch and gently stroked the short hair on his head. Faint light emanated from its blossoms and lingered around him.

It was comforting him. Ye Fu knew that.

Ye Fu felt numb inside, unsure what to feel. After a long, long time, all his disappointment turned into a sigh that faded into nothing.